The Chambers and the Valves
by CrystallineSolid
Summary: 'He held Nick like he had never held any goddamn human being before, because they were still alive, for Christ's sake, and they were going to act like it.' - the story of how Nick and Greg find their way back to each other again.


Author's Note: This is set mid season eight, and the only spoilers are for For Gedda and For Warrick. Enjoy ^^

* * *

_And I pray for your health, and I tell myself,_  
_It's the chambers and the valves that pump the sentiment around,_  
_But I swallow the words, and close my mouth._

* * *

When they first broke up, it was easier than Greg thought it would be.

He went to work the next day with knots in his stomach. A great, dull nausea had slowly built up in him, and despite his greatest efforts, he still arrived at work fifteen minutes early.

Fifteen minutes with Nick in the break room. He wanted to close his eyes and run.

He tested the air in the break room, and was surprised to find that the dense tension he had been expecting was absent. Nick was talking to Warrick; Nick kept talking to Warrick. Greg sat down next to Sara, and half a mug of soothing coffee later, even managed a real laugh.

Nick laughed too.

Something shattered inside Greg's chest. Was it really this easy?

* * *

He clenched his fists under the table when Grissom was giving out assignments.

"Warrick, Nick, you've got a 419 off the Strip."

He looked up instinctively at Nick. Their eyes met for one, shocking moment, and Greg's chest ached when he saw his own painful relief reflected in Nick's eyes. Nick frowned; his mouth turned sad. Greg wanted to look away.

His own disappointment confused him.

"Greg, you're with Catherine."

Oh.

Okay.

* * *

At the beginning of every shift, he waited with bated breath. He felt himself visibly relax whenever he was paired up with someone other than Nick. Each time, his stiffness shocked him.

It was only then that he felt grateful that no one had known about their relationship, because it meant that no one noticed what was wrong with him.

Was there something wrong with him?

* * *

It wasn't hard as long he didn't have to speak to Nick.

When the whole team worked together to solve a case, he stared at the wall when he had anything to present. Sometimes, his words would help Nick to form theories. Sometimes, he would begin to piece something together, and Nick would cut him off and complete his very sentence. Sometimes, he would speak about the evidence Nick himself had collected.

He stared at the _wall_. He spoke to the _wall_.

He didn't speak to Nick.

And it wasn't hard.

At all.

* * *

The first time they had to work a case together, he swallowed down the nausea and felt his shoulders creep up to his ears.

Nick let him drive to the scene. Nick chose the music: Johnny Cash, the only country music Greg could stand.

His shoulders relaxed. He dared a glance at Nick. Nick smiled at him.

Two red lights later, the air around him thinned to it's normal density. The sweat gathering under his collar dried.

When they stopped at the scene, Nick squeezed his shoulder before getting out of the car. And then it occurred to him: it was the first time he felt so relaxed at work in a long time.

He knew why: there was nothing to hide. Nick knew exactly what had happened. Nick knew exactly what was happening. He didn't have to pretend. He didn't have to sit up straight, and stay as still as he could.

He could move. He could finally move again.

* * *

They worked with a fluidity Greg hadn't expected. In their perfect silence, he had time to think. He discovered something new: that their comfort with one another, their ease and togetherness had not been lost. Despite everything that had torn them apart, the fundamental movement of their bodies was one. They were in effortlessly in sinc with one another. Pieces of the same clockwork, it was only together that they functioned without hesitance. They processed the scene faster than they would have with anyone else, and Greg felt peace descend over him. The peace of knowing where you belong.

Greg pressed his head against the headrest in the car. It was only once their work was done that he registered a low throb in his chest, something drawing his heart towards Nick.

He closed his eyes against the longing.

* * *

He realized that the only reason it wasn't so bad was because he had been expecting worse.

In his mind, he had built up all the many bad things that could happen, like Nick transferring to days, or never speaking to him again, or everyone figuring it out, or his entire world crashing down upon him so that he could hardly breathe.

And so, rather than feeling the great pain of his empty lips, he felt relief. Relief in degrees, for every moment that something terrible could happen and it didn't.

Was this the only way to survive?

* * *

Saturday night, end of shift, and he pressed his face against the cool locker door. The weight of his exhaustion finally hit him. He had Sunday off, and for once, he wasn't on call. It had been a long week; he was ready to admit that much at least.

The relief of knowing he could finally sleep in rested in his shoulders and made his whole body relax. He couldn't help but smile at the familiar feeling. It felt as though it was the first time all week that anything at all was familiar.

Then he was home, and the dull, tired ache in his back was alleviated as he pressed it into the mattress. The sheets were cool, and he groaned slightly as he stretched. He fumbled for his alarm clock in the dark, and turned it off. As his eyes slipped closed, he basked in the blankness of his exhaustion and his last thoughts were,

_Finally._

_Sleep._

* * *

The light slicing through the blinds was orange. Greg groaned and rolled onto his stomach, falling asleep easily. He woke again some time later, and wracked his mind for motive to fight sleep and get out of bed. But he found none and dozed off again. Soon, he found himself fighting harder and harder to remain sleeping, and when he finally failed to fall asleep again, he flipped onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

Dim, grey light shone into the room, signifying that it was early evening already. His mind felt heavy, and yet, for once, he wasn't sleepy at all. Instead of feeling refreshed, he felt hollow. It was Sunday evening, and he was alone in bed with nothing to do all day. He should have felt happy, ecstatic even, but instead he felt dull. The emptiness that had been building in the pit of his stomach threatened to overwhelm him.

He couldn't even bring himself to get out of bed. He had been fine all week, and now he couldn't even get out of bed.

He lay in bed for another hour. His mouth tasted strange, and his chest hurt. It was Nick's day off too. Nick, across town; lying in bed, alone; empty; without him.

Was it so? Was Nick alone without him?

He spread his arm out, letting his fingertips touch the spot in bed where Nick would have been sleeping if he was staying over.

Here they were,

Alone together.

Together alone.

* * *

Two cups of coffee, and nothing. All week he had been waiting for this time to himself, and now he just wanted to go back to work. He needed the time to pass. He needed anything to get his mind off of this great emptiness in his soul.

When had this happened? When had he allowed Nick to infiltrate into his heart, to complete him? And now, he'd done it. He'd done it, and this emptiness had set in. Was it even possible for emptiness to fill a person up?

That's how he felt. Filled up with nothing. There was nothing inside of him, and he wanted it to get out.

Nursing his third coffee of the day, third headache of the day, he realized:

_Fuck. I need someone to love me, so bad it's not even funny._

* * *

_Three Months Later:_

He felt the old ache of longing stir up within him again, the kind that he hadn't felt since the first weekend after he and Nick broke up.

It was almost easy now, for the most part. He kept busy. He kept busy with things that he wouldn't have been able to do while he was dating someone. Things like staying up all night reading, or drinking coffee in the library while looking for that one, elusive history book. Researching on his laptop for hours on end, while listening to throbbing music. Going on 'dates' with Catherine's mother.

Things like wanting to make something of himself. Like wanting to write a book, and actually writing it.

He should have been ecstatic—saving Warrick's ass, and going to LA to get his book published on the same night. Instead he felt a low, keen longing to escape from within him. He missed Nick. He truly missed Nick more than he had even let himself miss Nick before tonight.

Their meal at the diner had been so normal. Nick had smiled with him, smiled _at_ him. It was almost like nothing had changed, except that, when he looked into Nick's eyes, he saw that everything had changed.

Those sweet, familiar eyes and the sweet, familiar affection he still saw inside of them.

Affection that was so far from his reach now, and that _distance_, that distance was new.

_Distance: like being thirty thousand feet above the ground on an airplane._

_Distance: like sitting next to each other in a diner with our family._

* * *

_Call me ASAP. _  
_Nick._

Greg clutched the handle of his rollaway, and stood in the LA airport reading his text message.

_Signing it like I don't have his fucking number,_ the thought raced through his mind before he could stop himself, and he felt angry all of a sudden. He dialed Nick's number, and felt strange waiting for him to pick up.

Three whole months since they had broken up, and it was first time he was having a one-on-one conversation with Nick outside of work. He straightened out his shoulders and hardened his resolve. He wanted to be angry; he wanted to be cold, and he wanted it to show in his voice when he spoke to Nick. He wanted to show this disconnect between them. He didn't want it to be like they were still together, when they were so painfully not so.

But when Nick answered with "Greg?" instead of his usual 'Stokes', Greg felt the breath leave him.

This man. This man. Oh God, this man.

"Nicky?" the nickname slipped out, and the normality of his voice startled him. He slipped smoothly into his old mold of Nick's boyfriend, and it was so _easy_ that his heart ached. "You called?"

"Greg—" Nick said his name again, and suddenly, he could feel that something was wrong. "Greg, it's bad."

"Don't say it," the words rushed out, and Greg wasn't sure if he wanted to shield himself, or Nick from the force of his words.

"I have to."

Nick. Nick and his voice. Nick and the tears in his voice. Nick, Nick, Nick this man—this man who made his heart ache. And he's missed Nick so much, and he's missed this so much,

and he felt absolutely nauseous, because something was _wrong_.

Why did Nick have to say it?

"Okay," Greg whispered, closing his eyes. "Just do it."

"It's Warrick," Nick's voice cracked. "Greg, he's..."

"I know," Greg said all of a sudden, the weight of the knowledge crushing his chest. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't imagine. It wasn't possible.

It was Nick. It was Nick. Nick was telling him this; Nick was telling him this truth that he wished was a lie.

"I know. Don't say it, I know."

Nick sighed audibly on the phone. Greg sank down into a chair, and held his head and said,

"I'm coming home."

* * *

He came home to the lab straight from the airport, and suddenly, it wasn't home anymore.

The loss in the air, in the eyes, and he stared at the ground and wished he didn't have to see.

When he saw Grissom, something in his stomach dislodged itself and fell to the floor. He couldn't look into Grissom's eyes, and he couldn't look at the blood on his shirt, but he _had_ to look.

How was this happening? Who was letting this happen?

* * *

And when he stumbled into the locker room, wanting to compose himself before he did anything at all in this fucking glass house—he finally found the one person he could bear to see.

Nick stood to meet him, and his turmoil must have shown on his face, because Nick was moaning his name, and crying.

Greg closed his eyes and pursed his lips, and felt a warm hand on his neck and a warm voice saying: "Don't, Greg. Don't pretend. It's just me, you don't have to."

And the emptiness rose up from his stomach to his throat, and the tears came. The familiar embrace, and Nick's tears on his neck, and his own struggling down his face.

He held Nick like he had never held any goddamn human being before, because they were still alive, for Christ's sake, and they were going to act like it.

Nick drew away, and held Greg's face in his hands and cried like the world would never right itself.

Greg wiped away Nick's tears, and swallowed back his own.

Their whole world was in chaos, but

"We are at peace again."


End file.
